Return to ‘Watchmen’ in the New Comic-Con Trailer

The new trailer for HBO’s Watchmen is our best look yet at Damon Lindelof’s ambitious show based on the classic graphic novel. The series is very clearly a sequel, set years after the events of the movie and book. We get glimpses of some of the characters from the original comic — like Doctor Manhattan, who’s apparently living on Mars, but might return in the final shots of this trailer — and plenty of new ones as well. Like Regina King’s masked vigilante. It looks really interesting. It looks like Watchmen — but not the one we know. And since the one we know already got a pretty faithful film adaptation (directed by Zack Snyder) that’s a good thing.

Here’s the series’ official synopsis:

There is a vast and insidious conspiracy at play. #WatchmenHBO debuts this October. From Damon Lindelof and set in an alternate history where masked vigilantes are treated as outlaws, this drama series embraces the nostalgia of the original groundbreaking graphic novel of the same name while attempting to break new ground of its own. The cast includes Regina King, Jeremy Irons, Don Johnson, Jean Smart, Tim Blake Nelson, Louis Gossett Jr., Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Hong Chau, Andrew Howard, Tom Mison, Frances Fisher, Jacob Ming-Trent, Sara Vickers, Dylan Schombing, and James Wolk.

This show looks a lot better than I would have expected. HBO needs a new flagship show with Game of Thrones over and Westworld not returning until some time next year. Watchmen might be it.